MPs and buggers

No, not the race of insectoid aliens intent on wiping out humanity. It's about Labour MP Sadiq Khan, who was apparently bugged by the police when visiting constituent Babar Ahmad in jail. Justice Secretary Jack Straw is now investigating matters. He's described it as "unacceptable" for an MP to be spied on when talking to a constituent - and he's on solid ground, since it's completely illegal for the police to carry out surveillance activities against an MP.

That's not how some of the public see it, though. Reading through the comments on BBC's "Have Your Say" can be a risky business for a liberal, as it has the potential to double your blood pressure within seconds. The opinions on the current fiasco are no different; these are currently the three top-rated comments:

MP's should have the same conditions in life as the people who elect them and be exempted from nothing.

Surely if they're doing nothing wrong they have nothing to fear or does that only apply to the public?

Am I exempt from police bugging? No i'm not, so why should an MP be exempt?

Maybe these goons don't realise it, but it's not the privacy of MPs we're talking about here. It's the privacy of their constituents. As anyone who's ever worked in an MP's office will tell you, much of their work involves looking after people who have fallen through the gaps, or been royally screwed over by the system. Some of it is genuinely heartbreaking. If police are bugging MPs' conversations with their constituents, then they are bugging us, at the most difficult and horrendous times in our lives. This isn't a special law to protect MPs - it's a special law to protect the general public.

It's quite similar to the exemptions in the Freedom of Information Act, which protect MPs' correspondence with their constituents, giving the lie to David Maclean's cynical and dishonest stunt last year.

And then there's this little gem:

Of course they [MPs] should [be bugged] when they are visiting such a person in Jail as Babar Ahmad. Has anybody given a thought to the families and friends of those killed by terrorist activities? No I thought not. All we ever hear these days is Human Rights - what about the rights of those killed and maimed?

Would this be the same Babar Ahmad who has been in jail for the past three years, despite never having been charged with a crime?

Of course I care about the families and friends of terrorist victims; of course I care about those who are killed and maimed. I believe those people deserve justice. But justice means not punishing people unless we can prove them guilty. Babar Ahmad hasn't been called to account in court, and there's been no evidence produced against him: how can you possibly know whether or not he's done something wrong?

People just do not seem to get the concept of what it means to have a right. A right is a fundamental entitlement, granted to every person, under a given legal system. Every time I hear someone bleating about how criminals and terrorists should "forfeit" their rights, I want to shout: No! You are wrong. You are illiterate. If it can be forfeited, then by definition, it isn't a right. It's a privilege.

Sport and politics will always go together

The Australian Government has banned the national cricket team from playing against Zimbabwe. Australian PM John Howard threatened to seize the players’ passports if they didn’t fall in line, claiming that their presence in Zimbabwe would be a “propaganda boost” to the “grubby dictator” Robert Mugabe.

It’s been a popular decision; MPs from across the political spectrum tabled an early day motion in Parliament welcoming the move. Whatever people think of Howard, he’s shown a lot more gumption than Jack Straw a few years ago, who shied away from a difficult decision. Straw, then Foreign Secretary, passed the buck to the England and Wales Cricket Board, saying that it was a matter for the sporting authorities, and not for the Government. That effectively forced England to play, because without the force majeure of a Government intervention, they would have had to pay a substantial fine to the International Cricket Council.

When politicians like Straw argue that sport and politics don’t mix, they’re merely running away from a difficult decision – a decision which they ought to tackle directly. For as long as national sporting teams have competed against each other, Governments have used them as a proxy, fighting for political prowess and recognition. More often than not, it’s the least pleasant and least democratic regimes, the ones with something to prove, who feel the need to inflate the national ego with a major sporting event. Sport and politics have always gone hand in hand.

Just as a case study, take the People’s Republic of China. The Chinese Government bankrolled the construction of a massive, state-of-the-art racing circuit in Shanghai, where they’ve been hosting a Formula 1 Grand Prix since 2004. The project cost 240 million US dollars; the track is shaped like the Chinese character “Shang”, and has a racing paddock the size of a reasonably large village. It also has two gigantic, impossibly-balanced, glass-and-metal viewing platforms suspended over the start finish line. I have no idea how many people had to slog away to build the thing, but whoever they were, I’m pretty certain they weren’t earning a fair minimum wage, weren’t protected by workplace safety standards, and weren’t entitled to join a union or to strike. They also certainly didn’t have the chance to vote, in a general election, on whether or not a Formula 1 track was the best possible use for $240 million – or on any other political issue facing China.

I should point out that the 2007 Freedom in the World survey awarded identical (and identically atrocious) scores to both China and Zimbabwe – so perhaps if British super-kid Lewis Hamilton is still leading the World Championship at the end of the season, as F1 heads to China, the new Foreign Secretary should have his car impounded. It would devastate the fans, and almost certainly cause a diplomatic crisis – but is it any less morally justified than Howard standing up to Mugabe?

The truth is that sport will always be political. If the Governments of democratic nations stand back, and refuse to sully the purity of sporting competition with external affairs, they’ll simply allow undemocratic regimes the freedom to promote themselves without challenge. Instead, we should play Mugabe and friends at their own game, and use the sporting arena to isolate countries that fail to respect the human rights of their citizens.

We may not be able to stop sport from being infiltrated by politics, but at least we can make sure that it’s the right kind of politics.